On Marvel Studios’ latest superhero feature, Ant-Man, Method Studios, led by visual effects supervisor Greg Steele, was charged with populating the film’s macro world with insects imbued with personality while maintaining a photorealistic look. “The Marvel creatives were nervous of people being turned off by the ants. What we wanted to do was give the insects more of a visual appeal,” notes Steele. “The first thing to go were all of the nasty thorny hairs all over the ant’s body, which were replaced with peach fuzz. Next were their mannerisms and how they moved. We did a range of tests early on when developing the vignettes. When Ant-Man is shown at small scale, time slows down so that the ants don’t appear too frenetic. We treated them almost like puppy dogs. The cute behaviour went over well.”

Brett Ratner’s Hercules tells the myth – and the truths – behind the demigod son of Zeus. Visual effects supervisor John Bruno had to walk the line between the man and the myth in both helping to craft the film’s gritty battle action and bringing to life the Hercules’ legendary Twelve Labors in which he encounters a series of fantastical beasts. Despite these daunting effects tasks, Bruno still saw a need to de-emphasize the effects and maintain realism. “The most fantastical effects were Hercules’ Labors,” says Bruno, “but we still wanted to base those on reality. Although the creatures became quite large we still wanted to set them up in an environment that was quite real.”